


some kind of misguided genius

by ChocoholicBec



Category: The Time of the Ghost - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Present Tense, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1850545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoholicBec/pseuds/ChocoholicBec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned Jenkins drinks coffee with Sally, and remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some kind of misguided genius

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from something Himself says about Ned's Latin translation. "Jenkins... That boy is some kind of misguided genius, I think."

There are days when Ned is resolutely adult. He is twenty years old and managing – actually managing – to make his way as an artist, and he can almost convince himself that none of it really happened. The ghost hanging in the bowl of blood, the dead hen, his pen writing by itself, Monigan. He tells himself it had all been a stupid game, played just to frighten themselves, in that silly time towards the end of term, seven summers ago.

The rest of the time, he believes it. Something had broken that day, for all eight of them who had been there. Howard had broken his ties with England, Fenella stopped herself from passing school, Cart had tried to give up Oliver, Audrey – well, Audrey had fallen in entirely unrequited love with him. Nobody knew what Sally, Julian Addiman or Imogen had given up, but Ned knew it must have been something. He wondered whether Addiman had lost what remained of his humanity that day. He thought Sally had given up happiness. And Ned? Ned had lost the ability to love.

It had seemed strange, even at the time. How one day he could stare at Sally, thoroughly enamoured with her, how he could secretly hate Julian Addiman because Sally was so fascinated by him, how he could ignore any other girl that came his way – and the next day, Sally was just one of the Melford girls who lived beyond the green baize door at school, and not an object of longing. And yet he still wasn’t interested in any other girls, and he hadn’t quite understood why. Sally was his friend, but she became more and more distant as she became more and more entangled with Julian Addiman. He was no longer an object of envy, either, just a rather strange older boy, a bully who skived off Games and stole jam doughnuts. When they started going to the same art school, he and Sally had started to go out for coffee together, but it was more in memory of what had been, than in hope of what would be.

Now, as he sits in the café waiting for Sally, he stares out the window at a young woman passing. Tall, pretty, with curly red hair and a tight dress, and he doesn’t even care. It isn’t that he hasn’t tried sex, either. It’s fun enough, and he was always honest with the girls – and a couple of boys – that he only wanted that one night. But he didn’t love, couldn’t love, hadn’t been able to since that awful day down at the gallops.

“Ned! Hello,” says Sally, and he tears his eyes away. Sally is more pale and wan than she normally is. Her brown hair hangs limp against her cheeks, and Ned notices in a cold way that it isn’t quite masking a purple bruise on her cheekbone, and the long sleeves on her shirt don’t quite cover the yellowing marks of fingerprints on her forearm. He knows better than to ask Sally about the bruises. All she ever says is, “I tripped,” or “I walked into a doorframe,” in a deadened kind of voice. “Doorframes don’t have hands,” Ned doesn’t say. Instead, he says, “Shall I buy you a coffee? I’ve got a bit of cash this week.” Sally usually buys, but she says it’s worth it to see him.

Sally tries to smile, but it looks more like she’s just pushed the corners of her mouth upwards. “That would be lovely. Thanks, Ned.” So he buys two coffees, and hands one of them to her. Sally always drinks coffee in the same way – milky and with lots of sugar. She told him once that she doesn’t really like coffee, but she drinks it because it’s what artists are meant to drink. Sally sips from her cup of sweet milk with coffee flavouring, and sighs.

“So…” says Ned eventually. “How are things going?”  
“Fine,” says Sally. “Just fine.” She sounds – brittle.  
“Is Himself still harping on about your art school fees?” Ned adds. He knows Sally isn’t fine, and it has nothing to do with Himself. But he understands Sally too well, sometimes, knows that she never talks about what’s really bothering her. At least Ned can give her some plausible deniability in the form of Himself.  
Sally relaxes a little, but the lines of her neck and shoulders are still tight and hard with tension. “Oh, you know him, of course he is. ‘Sponging off other peoples’ hard earned money, no daughter of mine,’ blah blah blah.” Her imitation of Himself is pitch-perfect. She sips her coffee again. The bruise on her arm is stark against her skin.  
“Sally,” Ned hears himself say, “everything is… alright, isn’t it? With Addiman?”  
“Of course,” Sally says, sharply, and starts prattling about her latest Life Drawing class, her voice high and jagged at the edges, her hands fiddling nervously with the frayed hem of her shirt.  
Ned could kick himself.

Sally isn’t a sharp sort of person, normally. Ned has a theory that the four Melford girls are all like different art forms.  
Fenella is a stained-glass window: brilliant and fiery but with hard edges that the other three lack. She is the sort of person who always knows what she wants, and is willing to work to get it, and to fight if need be.  
Imogen is a charcoal drawing: dramatic, emotional, perfectionistic, and with surprising depth. She claims to want to be a concert pianist, but Ned wonders if anyone else has seen her patent unsuitability for the role. Ned has heard her practicing, and she’s good – very good – and she works and works at the pieces she plays. As soon as she has to perform, though, her soul isn’t really in it. Imogen isn’t like Fenella, craving the limelight. Ned doesn’t know what Imogen really wants, but he’s sure that it isn’t performing to huge crowds.  
Cart is a marble sculpture: strong-willed, practical, yet unexpectedly soft-hearted at times. Cart, Ned thinks, might not always have known what she wanted to do, but she has always known who she wanted to be.  
But Sally – Sally is a watercolour painting: soft-edged, calm-natured, not flamboyant, but longing for recognition. At least, that is what Ned thinks she should be like, what he remembers her as, the girl he had fallen in love with all those years ago. But something in the last seven years has muddied the colours, has darkened her spirit. It isn’t just growing up – Cart, if anything, is more vibrant now than she was at fourteen. No, Sally’s troubles are something else altogether.

Ned sits, and listens to Sally wittering about her class, her voice bright and false, and after a while he puts his hand on hers. “Sally, please. Tell me what’s really the matter.” Sally stops talking, and bursts into tears.  
“I can’t tell you,” she sobs, and tells him anyway. It’s worse than he had feared. Julian Addiman wants her to go to South Africa with him – South Africa! “And I can’t,” says Sally dully, “I just can’t go there. But I can’t say no to him, either. You don’t know what he’s like, when he gets angry.”  
Ned doesn’t say, “Yes, I do know what he’s like.” He doesn’t say, “You know what you have to do.” He just says, “Oh, Sally.”

Sometimes there isn’t an answer. Sometimes you can’t do anything to help. So Ned just sits there, letting Sally cry into his shoulder, letting his coffee get cold.

Because he had loved her, once.


End file.
